Enamel pins: hard and soft enamel, backs and backstamps

A band pin is small enough to read in one hand. Run a finger across the face and you can usually tell how it was made; turn it over and the back has a clutch, perhaps a moulded mark, perhaps a copyright line. Each says something, but less than collectors often hope, and none of them dates a pin on its own.

The short answer: soft enamel sits below raised metal lines you can feel; hard enamel is polished flat with the metal; a printed pin is smooth under a clear coat. The backstamp shows what the customer chose to put there and the clutch shows how the pin fastens; neither dates it, because any back fits any pin and a backstamp mould can be reused. Store pins dry, apart from each other, and not on wool felt.

Hard enamel, soft enamel and printed pins

An enamel pin starts as stamped metal. A maker strikes the design into metal with a steel die, leaving raised lines and recessed areas, then fills the recesses with colour. How far the colour is filled is the difference. Pin makers' own descriptions:

• Soft enamel. Colour "is added to the recessed areas of the die-struck metal and then oven-cured", and sits "slightly below the raised metal borders, so when you run your finger across the pin you can feel the ridges of the design" (Lapel Pins Plus, a maker's description).
• Hard enamel. The pin is "filled, cured, and then polished down until the enamel is completely flush with the metal borders", giving "a perfectly smooth, flat surface" (the same maker). Another maker puts it simply: both start as the same die-struck pin, and the difference is the enamel and "how far it is filled" (Signature Pins, a maker's description).
• Printed pins. Instead of filling enamel, the design "is printed directly onto the plated metal surface, then sealed under a clear protective coat or epoxy dome". It is the type that can show photographs and colour gradients (Lapel Pins Plus, a maker's description).
• Die-struck with no colour. The raised and recessed metal is the whole design (Signature Pins).

Two cautions. A smooth face doesn't always mean hard enamel: makers sell a clear epoxy dome on soft enamel pins for "a smooth face without the hard enamel price" (Signature Pins). And the makers we read don't agree on what hard enamel fill is made of or how hot it is fired, so we don't say.

Cloisonné means two things

Museums use "enamel" for glass fused to metal: "Enamels are made by fusing finely-ground glass to metal," says the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A). In true cloisonné, the coloured enamels are held in "'cloisons' (compartments) formed by metal wires or bands"; the V&A keeps a set of Japanese vases, about 1900, that shows each stage (V&A).

Pin makers use "cloisonné" as another name for hard enamel pins. One says the two are "two names for one product" (Signature Pins). So a pin sold as cloisonné is a hard enamel pin; it doesn't tell you it was made the way a museum's cloisonné was.

The back: clutches

The clutch is what holds the pin on. Makers name three common kinds (Lapel Pins Plus, Types of Pin Backs, a maker's description):

• Butterfly or military clutch. "Two spring-loaded metal wings grip the pin post; squeeze the wings to release."
• Rubber clutch. "A soft rubber cap presses onto the pin post with friction", easier on and off, and "gentler on fabric than metal clutches".
• Locking back. "An internal mechanism locks onto the grooved pin post and won't release until you pull the top collar straight back."

The maker ranks locking backs as the most secure and butterfly over rubber; we found no independent test. What matters for collectors is that the clutch tells you nothing about age or origin. The same maker says "every backing attaches to the same pin post", and another offers butterfly or rubber as standard and locking backs as an extra on any order (Signature Pins).

The back: backstamps and small print

Backstamps

A backstamp is a design moulded into the back of a pin: "Unique designs pressed into the back of a lapel pin are called backstamps," says one maker, and customers choose what goes on it, from a signature to a logo (Signature Pins, a maker's description). Two things follow.

• It carries what the customer chose, such as an artist's mark or a company's logo.
• It doesn't date the pin. It is an optional extra, and "once a backstamp mold is paid for, it can be used as often and as many times as you would like". A pin carries a year only "if you choose to add a date to your design" (Signature Pins). A later order can carry the same backstamp as the first.

The copyright line

A © line on a pin back gives the year the artwork was first published, not the year the pin was made. The US Copyright Office says a notice carries "the year of first publication of the work", and that the year could be left off works reproduced on "jewelry ... or any useful article". Notice has been optional for works published on or after 1 March 1989 (US Copyright Office, Circular 3). A pin with no © line is not unusual.

The "Made in" line

US customs rules require "every article of foreign origin (or its container)" to show its country of origin, so the mark can be on the article or its container (19 CFR 134.11). A pin with no "Made in" line on the metal may have had it on the backing card or the bag.

Older button badges

Before enamel pins, band fans wore buttons. A University of Iowa Libraries history dates "the pin-back button as we know it today" to an 1896 patent and the Whitehead & Hoag Company of Newark, New Jersey, which made it: a clear celluloid cover over the design and a metal pin on the back (University of Iowa Libraries). The patent itself, US 564,356 of 21 July 1896, aimed to put "an inscription, design, emblem, or the like, not only on the face thereof but also on the back" (US Patent 564,356), and a museum record shows a back paper printed with the maker's name and patent dates (The Henry Ford).

A Minnesota Historical Society conservation note explains how these buttons were built and how they changed (MNHS Tech Talk, 1998):

• Printed paper under a celluloid layer, over a metal base, held by a rim called a collet, which usually carried the spring pin.
• Many carry a printing trades union label on the margin.
• From 1917, "lithos": the picture printed straight onto the metal, with or without a plastic coat.
• In the 1940s celluloid film gave way to acetate, and later to polyester. The University of Iowa adds that most modern buttons have a closed pin and a mylar cover, and shows a Beatles fan club button with "a manufacturing mark from the Asco Company of Winona, Minnesota".

The same note says never to try to take a button apart, and that it is "a good practice not to open the spring pins" of an old one.

Storing a pin collection

Pins are metal, and metal tarnishes and corrodes. The conservation advice is short.

• Not on wool felt. "Wool felt contains sulphur that can tarnish silver and other metals," says the Minnesota Historical Society; unsized cotton, silk and polyester are acceptable for covering display boards (MNHS). The Canadian Conservation Institute lists wool, felt and rubber among materials that give off tarnishing gases (CCI Notes 9/2).
• Dry, and steady. The CCI suggests 35 to 55 percent relative humidity for metals; the MNHS says humidity above 60 percent can cause corrosion on buttons, and rust on an old button's base can come through its paper as reddish spots.
• Apart. Different metals touching in damp air can corrode faster, which the CCI calls galvanic corrosion. The MNHS says not to stack buttons on one another.
• No wood boxes for long storage. The CCI warns that wood and wood-pulp products release sulphur compounds and acid vapours that harm metals.
• Go easy on polish. On silver-plated metal, "too much polishing can remove all the silver in some areas", says the CCI; the best way to avoid polishing is to stop tarnish in the first place (CCI Notes 9/11). Sealed polyethylene bags slow tarnish (CCI Notes 9/7).
• No glue. The MNHS says a button should never be mounted with adhesive.

A pinned jacket or vest in long storage is a textile question as well: the CCI advises taking pins out of stored textiles, because they "put stress on the fabric and are almost certain to rust" (CCI Notes 13/2). Our guide to band patches covers the jacket itself.

Checklist

1. Run a finger across the face: ridges mean soft enamel; flat and polished means hard enamel or a dome.
2. Don't assume a smooth pin is hard enamel: makers put clear domes on soft enamel pins too.
3. Read "cloisonné" on a modern pin as the maker's name for hard enamel.
4. Treat the clutch as a fastener only; it doesn't date a pin.
5. Read a backstamp as who ordered the pin, not when it was made.
6. Read a © year as when the artwork came out, not when the pin was made.
7. Never take an old button apart or open its spring pin.
8. Store pins dry and apart, on cotton or polyester, not wool felt, and polish silver-plated metal as little as you can.

Pins on MerchVice: see members' pins on Explore, or pins open to trade.

Sources

Museums, libraries and conservation institutes:

• Victoria and Albert Museum: Enamels and Vase, cloisonné teaching set, about 1900
• Canadian Conservation Institute: CCI Notes 9/2, Storage of Metals; 9/7, Silver: Care and Tarnish Removal; 9/11, Precipitated Calcium Carbonate Silver Polish; 13/2, Flat Storage for Textiles
• Minnesota Historical Society: Tech Talk: Care and Conservation of Political Campaign Buttons, 1998
• University of Iowa Libraries, Special Collections: Buttons, Buttons, Buttons!, 2023
• The Henry Ford: William Linton campaign button, 1896

Law and patents:

• US Copyright Office: Circular 3, Copyright Notice
• 19 CFR 134.11, Country of origin marking required
• US Patent 564,356, Badge pin or button, 1896

Pin makers' own descriptions of their process:

• Lapel Pins Plus: Soft enamel vs hard enamel, Offset printed pins and Types of pin backs
• Signature Pins: Soft and hard enamel, Is cloisonné the same as hard enamel?, Die struck pins, Attachments, Custom backstamps and What is a back stamp?

Every page was read on 25 October 2026. The makers are cited only for how they describe their own process; we name no product to buy.